“I’m optimistic that electronic reading will bring more good than harm.” — Jacob Weisberg, Slate, 3/21/09

It’s not difficult to guess that we at Linebreak have some sizable bets out on the e-literature horse.

Confession: I’m a book hoarder.

My bookshelves runneth over. I keep books on side tables, on the floor, on the defunct entertainment center shoved into the corner. Books are what we’ve had to work with, sure, but I’ll admit I’ve got real affection for the dusty, crumbly things.

Why don’t I have a Kindle (or its shinier, brighter sibling Kindle 2)? I’m broke, but who isn’t? I like holding books. I like turning pages. Johnathon is likely glowering at what sound like a technophobe’s reservations.

It’s what we deal with daily when we consider what we do on this site. Will we be forgiven for not having a body? For our own part, I hope so. Is reading poetry in a digital format different than reading a novel in the same way? I think so. Poetry’s manageable. It’s not Moby-Dick.

I don’t know how to react to Jacob Weisberg’s recent Slate article: is the Kindle the future? How long until we embrace our digital overlords? I have a feeling we’ll see soon enough.

Linebreak contributor and all around swell gal Sandra Beasley is featured this week at How a Poem Happens, with an interview on the writing of her poem “Metro Section, Page 4.”

In the wrong hands, the narrative/lyric divide is one of the great straw men of lit-crit. The great poems have both. Even in The Iliad, Homer was careful to build in descriptive passages that worked as mini-lyrics and proved his value, amidst all that marshalled history, in the role of delivering poet.

“…Thanne longen folk” to celebrate National Poetry Month?

Why? Well, April is – and you can check Wikipedia on this, it’s bondafide fact - the cruelest month, and that makes it the best time for poems. The end.

(Don’t pay attention to what  it says on Poets.org – a website from the Academy of American Poets, the folks who’ve been bringing you National Poetry Month since 1996. They suggest that April was chosen simply because it “seemed the best time within the year to turn attention toward the art of poetry.”

My story’s blatantly truer.)

However, whether or not we trust the facts on Poets.org, they do suggest ways to celebrate.

You could do it up with their “star-studded”  annual Poetry & The Creative Mind Gala at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts -  this year features “readings by Jorie Graham, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Chip Kidd, Wynton Marsalis, Steve Reich, and other special guests” with VIP Tickets available for the low, low price of $450.00 (contact bharrison@poets.org) and the cheap seats going for $40.00 and up right now.

If you aren’t in New York – or, alternately, if you are in NY and are also broke – they provide a list of 30 other ways you can celebrate National Poetry Month, asking you to “Promote public support for poetry” by writing your Senators or Representatives in Congress  or just to “Play exquisite corpse“.

Additionally, Poets.org is offering you the shot to  sign up for their Poem-A-Day e-mails. Much as you might suspect, should you choose to sign up, you’ll get a poem in your inbox every day, beginning April 1.

While I’m planning  to celebrate April 1 by cuddling up with some liquor before simultaneously memorizing “The Wasteland”, “The Canterbury Tales” and my W-2, even I know that getting a poem a day – or some free lesson plans to use for the month of April – is nothing to sneeze at.

Or, well, maybe it is, if the image they’re using to promote NPM implies that poetry is medicine?

Gasundheit!

From Sarah Manguso’s profile of Gilbert:

In an interview in the 1990s Gilbert said, “Mechanical form doesn’t really matter to me. . . . Some poets [write within a form] with extraordinary deftness. But I don’t understand why. . . . It’s like treating poetry as though it’s learning how to balance brooms on your head. . . . It’s like people who think sexuality is fun. Sure, it’s fun, but it’s a way of getting someplace, not just running to the corner for a little spasm.”

Because I never tire of ribbing Ashley.

Let’s assume that our favorite poets are, in fact – as we have always suspected – superhuman. What are their superpowers, and – more importantly – what are the top ten poetic superpowers you would steal from them for yourself? Go.

At Sewanee Writer’s Conference last summer, there was a panel on online journals. To represent online journals, the organizers chose two editors of print-based journals, one of of which had an online counterpart. The other editor was half-heartedly – almost regretfully – toying with the idea.

During the panel, the latter editor asked who among us would be happy being published on a journal’s web version instead of in its print publication. While well over half of the attendees raised their hands, that apparently wasn’t enough for this editor, who said “See?” and went on to explain why online publication wasn’t perceived to be as prestigious as a print publication.  

Believe it or not, we deal with this attitude all the time here at Linebreak: an attitude that Johnathon summarizes as making technophobia a literary badge of honor,  an attitude that implies the work we publish is somehow second-tier because it’s not laid out in ink, an attitude that fears the internet is killing off good poetry.

Frankly: I’m calling bullshit. But so is Andrew Motion. 

In an article published in the Telegraph titled “Internet ‘is causing poetry boom‘”, the British poet laureate explains his thoughts on the relationship between the internet and poetry: “Poetry as an art form was simply well suited to the internet.”

While the article focuses on how internet communities support poetry readings, which have grown in popularity; how the internet provides a “shop window” for small presses; and how more people seem to be writing poetry lately, Motion sees the internet as returning poetry to the ear in important ways:

He said that because the web allowed people to listen to poetry once more, it had helped return it to the position it held in the “mead halls” 1,000 years ago.

Moreover, the ability to hear poetry online isn’t just rejuvenating an interest in contemporary poetry, but also in the golden oldies:

Websites like Poetry Archive, which enables people to listen to recordings of poets like TS Eliot and Allen Ginsberg reading their work, are now enjoying unprecedented success.

Poetry Archive , which Mr Motion helped set up, now receives 135,000 visitors a month and a million page hits.

The popularity of the Poetry Archive has only led Motion “to conclude that the real problem with poetry was ‘not one of appetite, but of delivery’.”

I couldn’t have said it better myself.